Journal of Adolescent Research 1–28 © The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0743558415594424 jar.sagepub.com Article Cultural, Media, and Peer Influences on Body Beauty Perceptions of Mexican American Adolescent Girls Laura F. Romo 1 , Rebeca Mireles-Rios 1 , and Aida Hurtado 1 Abstract Social and cultural values are believed to play a role in the types of bodies that adolescent girls consider beautiful and desirable. In this article, the authors analyzed qualitative interviews from 27 Latina mid-adolescent girls (ages 14 to 16) regarding their perceptions of what body shapes and sizes are valued in Latino culture and European American culture, the nature of their conversations with friends about appearance, and whether boys and the larger community consider large body sizes to be acceptable. There was an overwhelming consensus that a slender but curvy figure is the ideal body type in Latino culture and that European Americans value unnaturally thin physiques. Themes drawn from the adolescents’ responses point to their friends’ opinions, perceptions of boys’ dating preferences, norms in their communities, and body shapes of female celebrities in Latino media outlets as sources of beauty and desirability. These findings have implications for body image intervention programs that expose Latina girls to multiple possibilities of beauty when their physical body shapes exclude them from attaining the ideal that they perceive is appreciated in Latino culture. 1 University of California, Santa Barbara, USA Corresponding Author: Laura F. Romo, Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9490, USA. Email: lromo@education.ucsb.edu 594424JAR XX X 10.1177/0743558415594424Journal of Adolescent ResearchRomo et al. research-article 2015 at UNIV CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA on July 17, 2015 jar.sagepub.com Downloaded from